Mods
$30 a gallon tractor enamel and primer. Rebuilt suspension and drum brakes. Low buck Pontiac 461, used Edelbrock heads, used 4.25" crank kit, .030 over 400 block, solid Comp cam 238/242 110LSA. 3000 stall, Th350, 8.2 rear with 3.08 gears soon to get the 12 bolt from the 65 GTO and its 3.42 gears. Home made fiberglass hood and bumper, intentionally made to look rough, radiator support made from an old aluminum screen door. Dropped over 800lbs off the rolling shell, for $350. Its been weathering outside since 2015, and now has a near perfect patina to help with its sleeper status.
Build story
A friend who knows I am into Pontiac asked if I wanted a 68 LeMans two door. I said sure, and drove 1100 miles to go see it in 2014. It was in a Nebraska pasture, he was asking $400, I got it for $300, hit the drums with a hammer to free them so it would roll, and winched it on my trailer. I stayed in Nebraska for that winter, and in December started working on this one.
The idea is "How fast can you go for $5000 or less?" Something we have been doing on Bangshift for some time now. I have lots of Pontiac parts already, so its easy for me to go fast for dirt cheap. At first I rebuilt a 400 for it, budget, used the stock crank, forged rods, and the cheapest pistons Summit had which were domes. 6X heads and the domes made 9.2:1, give or take a little.
Got it drivable in two months, most of that time was waiting on machine work and the windshield to show up.
The easiest way to go fast for minimal cash is making it light. So I pulled a mold from the chrome bumper and stock hood, and laid up fiberglass parts. I made them look rough to give it the beater look. It was easy to do, just slap it all together and throw the resin in. Used old aluminum irrigation siphon tubes from the 1960s to stiffen the hood. Expanding foam to help the bumper out a bit. Found a manual steering box on a 65 Tempest 4 door at the local junk yard, for $25. Pulled everything out of the car it did not need. Boxed the rear control arms, and replaced bent parts with those from a 72 LeMans parts car I have there.
If the doors were not red I would have left it alone and not painted it. Instead I shot it flat black with tractor enamel from Orschleins, with a Harbor freight HVLP gun I got for $8. Painted it in my dad's yard in January because it was exceptionally warm that winter, I was wearing a T shirt. I didn't clean anything on the frame or suspension, just replaced all the bushings. At this point you'd never know it had any work done to it like that.
Hauled it to Michigan where I live in 2015, had to build my shop and house first before doing anything else. In 2018 I got an offer to buy some Edelbrock heads from one guy, a slightly used 461 kit from another, so I have less than $3000 in the engine, and roughly $4100 in the car as it sits right now. Nearly everything was bought used, except for the cam and lifters. The Th350 I rebuilt way back in the 90s but never ran, it just sat in a 79 Trans Am I bought wrecked for $500. That TA is on the short list to go in my shop. The 3000 stall I bought used around 2003 and ran in the 70 GTO for a while, when it was my daily.
Haven't made a pass with it yet, other things have gotten in the way of me finishing this one, but it runs, drives, stops, and scares people. If I can ever get in to get plates (there is a six week waiting list in Michigan) I will get this one legal and find out what it runs with a Dragy. The whole point of it is to build something quick and not spend more than $5000, and my goal is mid to low tens, on motor, and legal to drive around here... then maybe a pair of cheap turbos remote mounted under the trunk, and made as quiet as possible running E85. I figure doing that will stripe my underwear.
I have some videos on it, but not a build video like my 65 GTO. Should be some coming this summer.. if the state ever extracts their heads from their posteriors and I can get in to make it legal.
The idea is "How fast can you go for $5000 or less?" Something we have been doing on Bangshift for some time now. I have lots of Pontiac parts already, so its easy for me to go fast for dirt cheap. At first I rebuilt a 400 for it, budget, used the stock crank, forged rods, and the cheapest pistons Summit had which were domes. 6X heads and the domes made 9.2:1, give or take a little.
Got it drivable in two months, most of that time was waiting on machine work and the windshield to show up.
The easiest way to go fast for minimal cash is making it light. So I pulled a mold from the chrome bumper and stock hood, and laid up fiberglass parts. I made them look rough to give it the beater look. It was easy to do, just slap it all together and throw the resin in. Used old aluminum irrigation siphon tubes from the 1960s to stiffen the hood. Expanding foam to help the bumper out a bit. Found a manual steering box on a 65 Tempest 4 door at the local junk yard, for $25. Pulled everything out of the car it did not need. Boxed the rear control arms, and replaced bent parts with those from a 72 LeMans parts car I have there.
If the doors were not red I would have left it alone and not painted it. Instead I shot it flat black with tractor enamel from Orschleins, with a Harbor freight HVLP gun I got for $8. Painted it in my dad's yard in January because it was exceptionally warm that winter, I was wearing a T shirt. I didn't clean anything on the frame or suspension, just replaced all the bushings. At this point you'd never know it had any work done to it like that.
Hauled it to Michigan where I live in 2015, had to build my shop and house first before doing anything else. In 2018 I got an offer to buy some Edelbrock heads from one guy, a slightly used 461 kit from another, so I have less than $3000 in the engine, and roughly $4100 in the car as it sits right now. Nearly everything was bought used, except for the cam and lifters. The Th350 I rebuilt way back in the 90s but never ran, it just sat in a 79 Trans Am I bought wrecked for $500. That TA is on the short list to go in my shop. The 3000 stall I bought used around 2003 and ran in the 70 GTO for a while, when it was my daily.
Haven't made a pass with it yet, other things have gotten in the way of me finishing this one, but it runs, drives, stops, and scares people. If I can ever get in to get plates (there is a six week waiting list in Michigan) I will get this one legal and find out what it runs with a Dragy. The whole point of it is to build something quick and not spend more than $5000, and my goal is mid to low tens, on motor, and legal to drive around here... then maybe a pair of cheap turbos remote mounted under the trunk, and made as quiet as possible running E85. I figure doing that will stripe my underwear.
I have some videos on it, but not a build video like my 65 GTO. Should be some coming this summer.. if the state ever extracts their heads from their posteriors and I can get in to make it legal.